Dream Dance at the Carnival of Despair
by amishrolf
Summary: Kafuka is the most positive person in the world. She could see every catastrophe, crime, natural disaster, etc. in the most positive light possible. But what lies behind the silver lining is a circus containing a painful void of darkness and despair.


**Original Source**: _Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei_ _(So Long, Mr. Despair) by Koji Kumeta  
_**Genre**: _doujinshi / fan-fiction, psychological horror, dark humor  
_  
**Synopsis**: Kafuka Fuura is the most positive person in the world. She could see every catastrophe, crime, natural disaster, etc. in the most positive light possible. However, what lies behind the silver lining is a circus containing a painful void of darkness, hatred, and despair.

**Author's Comments**  
"Hey kids. Hope you all will enjoy this piece of psychological horror. Though this is only in writing for now, I hope you would also enjoy an illustrated version of this story. My only concern as you all read this is the number of things you may not understand since this is based off of preexisting work. While I would try to explain some things as best I can, I would feel the story would be too drawn out. You could understand it better just by watching the series. Delicious. But, since I care for my readers I will [try to] minimize the number of in-jokes. I'm going to stop here since I'm certain you just want to read the actual story now. Enjoy."

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**[Hour I]  
**_So Long, Mr. Despair_

_  
"A very small degree of hope is sufficient to create the birth of love."  
– Henri B. Stenghal, France (1783-1842)  
_

"Spring. April. My heart was filled with hope."

That day was possibly the most beautiful spring day I've ever experienced. The sun was shining beautifully; the trees around me showered their petals in the wind. Life is wonderful. Love is the essence of all life on this Earth. That and Lord Pololoka, of course. That day was also the day I met him - the man who tried to make himself taller.

"Don't…don't do it!" I screamed as I rushed over to free him from the noose. I threw my arms around his waist and tugged hard, trying to shake him loose. He wasn't. I pulled down harder and harder. He must have made the noose really tight! Honestly, you shouldn't tighten so much if you're only making yourself taller. Suddenly, I heard his muffled voice, gasping for air. Eventually, the rope snapped off the branch and we both hit the ground. The man seemed unconscious, but I had to be sure so I have begun to poke him. Like a startled dog rudely awakened from its nap, he sprung to life, coughing his lungs out. I guessed he was new to making himself taller.

"What if I had died!?" he shouted as he clasped his neck. He looked at me with an upset face through his glasses. But there was something about what he said that didn't seem quite right. It's strange; who was trying to kill him?

"Once again…" he said, catching my attention. "…I couldn't die. Why did you stop me?"

He was looking at me, demanding an answer. How could I answer him? "But you said, 'What if I had died?'"

"I am an utterly worthless human being…"  
"You didn't really want to die, did you?"  
"I was so ready and eager to--!"  
"You really didn't want to!" I was so happy to know he was not actually killing himself. It was all a big misunderstanding, though on his part. He really never tried making himself taller before, I thought he was just really scared. "On such a beautiful spring day like this, there's no way anyone would want to throw their life away! Spring…the season of beginnings. The season where love, hopes, and dreams are born! Spring welcomes us all to our bright future!"

I then looked at the man with a smile, trying to tell him that there's nothing to be afraid of. "If something bad were to have happened to you, Pink Young CEO wouldn't like that."

"Who is Pink Young CEO?" he asked.  
"The tree you were hanging from. I gave all these trees names. Hmm…but what should I call you?"  
"Eh…?"  
"Ah, I know! Since you were hanging from Pink Young CEO…you will be Pink Supervisor!"  
"You can't arbitrarily change my name like that!"

I didn't really think about what he said then. Did he not like the name?

"In this day and age, you can't just go about naming things as you please. You need money to buy the naming rights for stuff like stadiums and ballparks, etc." he said. He was interesting and knowledgeable about business so I thought I should just listen to him. He continued, changing his tone a bit. "Eventually rivers will be given the names of I.T. companies! Even Mt. Fuji will be given a name like Mt. Yahoo! BB or something!"

The man was then becoming a bit restless. If he was that concerned with the naming rights, I made an offer to pay him 50 cents to call him 'Pink Supervisor'. I was certain that would fix his problem, but he refused, I might have been wrong. The subject changed slightly when he continued. "Everything is about money, money, money…even young high school girls like you, it comes down to money."

He still seemed upset; did he just want more money? It was only 50 cents after all…

"This world is rotten…this rotten worthless world…" he said rather quietly before he suddenly raised his voice towards the sky above us. "It's hopeless! This money-mongering society has left me in despair!"

To be in despair…that's a terrible thing to say. I felt a bit unnerved when I heard that word. That man…he was in constant despair. I could have sworn my heart sank a little, but at the same time, I understood him. But I couldn't bring myself to tell him that, I just gave him a smile and my spirit rose again.

"I think I know what you were trying to do."  
"Of course…I've mentioned it a couple times already."  
"You were trying to make yourself taller!"  
"Huh? Excuse me?"  
"When I saw you, it reminded me of the day my father tried to make himself taller also!"

It's true, my father tried to make himself taller when I was younger. He always tried to grow taller whenever he fell on hard times. There was also a time when my mother also tried to get taller. I have to admit they are rather short compared to other people I've seen. But that man didn't look short at all. If he made himself any taller, he could be a basketball player…oh, maybe that's what he was going for!

"Pink Supervisor," I said as I handed him my two quarters, "are you trying to become a basketball player? You're not very short at all."  
"That's why I wasn't trying to grow…"

We stared at one another for what seemed like an eternity. That man, who saw everything in a negative light and myself, a girl who saw everything in a positive one. For only a split second, a voice in my mind had told me that that meeting was not meant to happen. As soon as the voice disappeared, Pink Supervisor had begun to run away, "I really meant to kill myself! I wanted to!"

As he ran, I only stared. All I could think about was how strange he was…and why I thought about him so much. I felt like I had to be around when he is in despair. Something inside me felt like I had to find out why. It was not until later when I got to school that I felt like my old self again. Everything was simply 'hunky-dory'. However, our teacher seemed awfully late that day. One of my classmates, Chiri Kitsu, was becoming irritated and complained about the teacher's tardiness. It was typical of her, so I simply minded my own business. Then to my surprise, Pink Supervisor appeared. He noticed me at the center of the room and was also surprised as I was.

"Ah, Pink Supervisor!" I happily greeted.  
"Y-you're the girl from this morning!" Pink Supervisor said, while he seemed to want to run away again. He seemed to have been taking his desires to become a basketball player seriously! All that running would definitely have him running circles around the other teams!

"Who is Pink Supervisor?" said a member of my class. Soon they were all talking amongst themselves about his name. I gave him the name, so I knew I liked it. "What is that?"  
"Quiet down, everyone! My name is not Pink Supervisor!" said Pink Supervisor.  
"I doubt anyone believed it was…"  
"Besides, it doesn't make much sense."  
I walked over to Pink Supervisor and handed him my change once more. I wanted him to be happy, so I abided by his rule for the name policy. "Here you go! This will settle things, right?"  
"Money isn't the issue here…" he said. Again with the refusal, Pink Supervisor sure was a difficult person to read. Maybe he was just hesitant about taking other's money. But if that were true, I don't think he would have been too bothered by the naming rights or…oh, this is a little confusing!  
"Even if it was, 50 cents seems really cheap…"  
"A price hike?"  
"No, I'm saying you got it totally wrong."

Mr. Pink Supervisor asked as all to then take our seats as he faced the chalkboard. I hoped Chiri was content with class having finally started. Mr. Pink Supervisor picked up a piece of chalk and begun to introduce himself to his students. "I am your homeroom teacher."

We all watched as he wrote his name on the board. It was a little difficult to read at the time. My classmates were thinking something like 'Bo Itoiro' or that he wasn't even Japanese – maybe continental Asia. Mr. Pink Supervisor was definitely Asian of some kind. He looked more Japanese though; he even wore an old-style kimono to our classroom. It was a classic literature class after all.

"No. My name is Nozomu Itoshiki, a bona-fide Japanese person."  
"That's a beautiful name." I said until I noticed he begun to sulk a little bit. Teacher was such a sad person; I wondered why he became that way from writing his name.

"The number of strokes in my name…it couldn't be any more worse…bad luck with money, no affinity to domestic fortune…least likely to be promoted, plans I will have in my twilight yeas will backfire…" He said. Oh my, he was really becoming depressed! I wondered what to do to cheer him up. He continued to speak, "I should just die…"

Again he spoke about that. If he made himself any taller, he wouldn't have been able to enter through the classroom door anymore!

"...and receive a posthumous Buddhist name that has better luck!"

That's when I came up with a great idea. I went over to the board and drew a star between his first and last name. I figured that would change the number of strokes in his name. But then he said that only singers did that. Darn, I was certain he'd like that one. So then I tried to use the '' symbol. It looked really trendy! Then he told me that that was the sort of thing you do only in pennames and titles. I supposed he was right, so I tried something else. But this idea revealed something extremely surprising to me.

"What now? Another horrible idea I presume…"  
"Since the stroke number is a Japanese thing, writing your name horizontally would eliminate the problem!"  
"Horizontally…wait, don't--! Anything but that!"

As I wrote it out the way I planned, myself, Mr. Pink Supervisor, and everyone else in the classroom looked at the name in awe. Since it was written horizontally, both his first and last name were compressed into a single character. That character then gave our teacher the name that would haunt him for the rest of his life. I read it aloud…

"…Mr. Despair!"  
"D-don't put them together like that!"

Afterwards, whenever we were to write his name horizontally, we made sure to leave a big space in-between.

"…you don't have to…overdo it so much…"

So as the day went on, we got to a point where we had to fill a survey by listing our top three most hopeless futures. It was probably just me, but I believed there is always hope in a person as long as they are willing to work for it. My classmates all seemed to have had their spirits up when they listened to me speak. But by the end of the day…that is a typical answer. Everyone says that. People always get excited over speeches like that. They're so impressionable. It was time to go home and as usual I walked alone. As I walked, I found a patch of flowers on the window sill of someone's house.

"How lovely…and yet so..."

The little plants were wilted. Life is fragile. Such small little things are overpowered by the hands of God and his twisted designs. What have the flowers done to deserve dying? They could have been the most beautiful and most pure beings on the planet, but alas, their lives are for naught. It is like Mr. Pink Supervisor…I mean, Mr. Itoshiki said this morning – is it really hopeless to be living if it only leads to death? The more I had thought about it, the more I had begun to agree. Death awaits us all…

"Ah, what am I thinking? These flowers are not wilting; they're simply going to sleep! How could something so scary like 'dying' exist so close to me?"

Hmm…now that I think about it, what happened then? Why did I think of the things I did that day? It wasn't like that before I met Nozomu Itoshiki.


End file.
